"I love Iran" - Western academics who are advocates of Persian/Iranian history

Nov 29, 2002
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#1
I thought I'd make a thread to raise awareness of, and celebrate, the advocates of Iranian/Persian history and hopefully some of us can buy their books, attend their lectures and tell our friends (iranian and non-iranian) about them.

The reason why I made this thread was that I bumped into a Welsh professor on twitter who was commenting about Joanna Lumley's great visit to Iran which was on ITV yesterday (Check it out here: https://www.itv.com/hub/joanna-lumle...re/2a5513a0003 )

First up, it has to of course be Professor Richard Nelson Frye - Scholar of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University:

 
Nov 29, 2002
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#2
Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is a Welsh professor of Persian Studies at Cardiff University.

He has written multiple books on Persia (and has lots of other interests in history too. I asked him his favourite part of Iran

"Well Takht-e Jamshid because of my research interest, but my favourite city is Isfahan. It is so elegant, so beautiful, and so friendly. But I must admit, I love the buzz of Tehran too. I need to visit Mashhad one day..."

Some of his books, he has lots more:

 
Nov 29, 2002
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#6
Empire Podcast is about a third of the way into Series 5 - Empires of Iran. It's on all the normal podcast places but i've copied the youtube links below.
Dameh Gary Lineker garm, is as good a media mogul as he was a goalpoacher

Some great listens so far:

Intro to Empires of Iran:


These are some of the best episodes:

Cyrus the Great:
Darius the Great:
Ferdosi, How one poet saved Persian language:
The Persian Renaissance:
How Iran became Shia:
https://youtu.be/Xz4ZUMlBHuY?si=8Vg3UajmyIy50LFj
Sassanian vs Romans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aN6tADgpjU
Isfahan, City of dreams:
https://youtu.be/sy_dCZNhfBM?si=3t_0gE_S_5HIKjbK
Nader Shah: Sword of Persia
https://youtu.be/x8imNZoJZyE?si=bLYwsAjwCnHPI5Eb
Timur:
https://youtu.be/5z0lBF5p06g?si=Q5bkyv4ocjpWBUxu


On a side-note, still fathoming how these "true brits"/"true patriots" who seem to love Trump, Brexit etc... don't just hate Iran today but they hate ancient Persia..., and just make things up

https://twitter.com/TRUEBRIT2020/status/1722652750205395036

He hates "woke" Gary Lineker so much that he is channelling Trump's "52 cultural sites" and "ar$bian gulf" statements into his backwards view on ancient Iran.